Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.

Ten Years Later

Cloud woke up with a start, wondering where he was for a moment before he remembered. He was in the cadet barracks in Shinra Company. His room-mate was snoring away in the bed on the other side of the room. Tiredly, he turned his attention over to his digital clock to see the numbers 5:46 glaring at him. Their training started at 0700, so he had just over an hour to get ready.

Heading into the bathroom, he undressed out of his pyjamas and examined himself in the mirror. He was scrawny, he had to admit that, with little to no muscle on him and only barely reaching 170cm, he was by far the smallest of the cadets that had only just entered the programme around the same time as him.

Letting out his wings, he sighed at the sight of them. His height wasn't the only thing that was lacking. In comparison to any other winged monster there, his wings were half the size of what was considered to be average. If he didn't have that ugly grey tip at the end he could extend them to their normal size, but he couldn't exactly do that here.

He mentally reminded himself that he had to think of this as a challenge. If he could make it through primary school pretending to be a flightless crane, then he could make it through his cadet training. He would just have to work twice as hard to reach his dream of becoming a SOLDIER.

Nodding to himself, he pulled his wings back and got into the shower. Once he was done, he pulled on a pair of his regulated cadet pants and draped his towel over his shoulders before he exited the bathroom to find his room mate sitting up in bed. He seemed to have just gotten up. "Yo, what time is it?"

Cloud cast a quick glance at his clock as he used the side of his towel to dry off his hair. "Quarter past 6. We still have enough time to grab breakfast before training. That is, if we leave within the next five minutes." His red headed room mate scratched the back of his head before he got out of bed and Cloud found himself staring at a hand.

"Reno. I'm a weasel." Shaking off his surprise, Cloud took the hand in his and shook it.

"Cloud Strife, crane." Reno grinned.

"A flier? I take it you're aiming to be a first class SOLDIER then?" Cloud blinked in surprise. How did he know from just that? Reno's grin just widened. "I'm aiming to become a Turk yo. Being able to read people comes in handy. Besides, it's what most fliers aim for when they join Shinra. After all, everyone in first class is a flier, except for Lieutenant Fair. I heard he was some kind of a mutt."

"Lieutenant Fair is a Gongaga grey wolf." Cloud replied almost automatically and almost slapped his hand against his mouth, but it was too late, if Reno's now ever present grin was anything to go by.

"Fan boy much?" He could already feel his face heating up in embarrassment. Reno just chuckled, placing his hand on top of Clouds head before ruffling it a little and making his way over to the bathroom. "If it makes you feel better, I'm pretty much in love with Tseng. He's one hot piece of fox, not that many people know that he's a fox yo."

As the door slammed shut behind Reno, Cloud grinned. At least it looked like he was going to get along well with his room mate.

Approximately ten minutes later Cloud found himself walking towards the mess hall with Reno chatting animatedly beside him. "And the next thing I know this hot chick turns into an even hotter guy who's all like, 'you should join the cadet programme. If your skills are anything like you've shown me today, you'll be first in line to join the Turks.' And that's the first time I met Tseng."

"And that's how you found out he was a fox?"

"No, that's how I found out he was a damn sexy piece of fox yo." Cloud just smiled and shook his head while Reno grinned. "So what about you chickabo? Why'd you join?" Cloud pulled a face at the nickname.

"Chickabo?"

"What? With that spiky blond hair of yours and your giant blue eyes you can't say you don't look anything like a chocobo, and you're too small to be a full grown one so chickabo." Shaking his head, Cloud decided to just let it slide. If you had friends, weird nicknames were meant to be expected.

"I'm from Nibelheim."

"Well that pretty much explains everything." Cloud stared at Reno questioningly. "Backwater town with nothing to do, not to mention I'm guessing the kids there are bigger than you, so you came here to show them what you could do right?"

"Are you sure you're not a stalker or anything." Reno grinned yet again.

"Nah, like I said I'm just observant." He pushed open the doors and allowed Cloud to go through first. The two of them made a beeline towards the food area before finding a small table to settle down in. "So country boy, coming from the middle of nowhere, how did you find out about Shinra?"

A list of possible scenario's flashed through Cloud's head at that but he couldn't exactly say 'my dad's a crow' and leave it at that. Crows were common in the military. They usually ended up in high up places along with alien type monsters. Shinra would actively seek them out and offer them the highest job possible to entice them to join. Clouds father had been one of them.

He chewed slowly on his food to think more on his answer before he could come up with a believable reply. It would make him sound like an even bigger fan boy, but it would do for now.

"I found an article in a magazine once. It had General Sephiroth and General Rhapsodos as well as details on Shinra on it. I was fascinated by it and… Well, you know the story." He wasn't exactly lying at least, the article was still hanging on his wall in his room back in Nibelheim along with a few posters that he had mail ordered when his mum had been out of town. Reno chuckled.

"Heh, the little chickabo's such a fan boy. Ah well, it's not like it's a bad thing…" Reno pushed his tray away and finished off his water. Cloud blinked in surprise, the other boy had barely even touched his food.

"Aren't you going to eat all that?"

"Weasel yo, we don't need to eat that much cause we're a bunch of scavengers. Besides, this mess hall food tastes like crap yo." Cloud shrugged. The food wasn't that bad. It tasted like nothing but it wasn't exactly inedible. "So you're a crane right chickabo?" Slowly, Cloud nodded his head. "So what are your abilities. Got anything interesting besides your black and white wings?"

"Um… Long life?" His answer caused Reno to start laughing.

"You're a funny little chickabo. We all know you cranes live longer than normal monsters yo. You live just about as long as crows do. You got anything else? Shape shifting? Speed? Super brain? Anything yo. I don't know much about your species."

"Um…" Reno sighed and fell back into his chair.

"If you don't want to tell me that's fine yo." Cloud was quick to shake his head.

"I'm not kidding seriously, I don't have that much…" Reno raised an eyebrow but then decided to just let the subject drop while Cloud checked his watch. "It's about time we head to training, we only have a few minutes to get to the hall." Leaving the rest of his food, Cloud downed the rest of his drink and they both stood up and headed out of the mess hall, towards the training rooms. Opening the doors they were met with a room full of cadets.

In an observation box above the training room, a dark haired man with large dog like ears was practically glued to the window. His tail wagging frantically behind him.

"You know if you push hard enough Zack, you might be able to break that glass and fall to your untimely death." Zack turned and glared at Genesis.

"Just because you're not interested in the new recruits, doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to be. I mean look at them all. To think that that used to be me." Angeal, who was standing beside Genesis chuckled.

"I don't get why you're always so excited about new recruits puppy. It's not like it's anything new. It's just rats, mice and more rats with a few others thrown into the mix."

"Why is that Angeal? I'm sure you've told me before but I don't remember, why are there always so many rodents within the ranks?" The first class just shrugged his shoulders.

"They make good cannon fodder?" Genesis offered, which earned him a smack over the head from the silver haired first that had been remaining quiet until now.

"Rodents are merely more common in our world. When they breed they tend to have more than one child at a time, but their children tend to die more often than not so they have more. They always tend to get themselves in dangerous situations more often than not. Their natural curiosity always seem to get them into trouble." Zack hummed at Sephiroth's explanation before he turned his attention back to the cadets.

"Oh Luxiere's coming! Now we can see what everyone is…"

Back down below all the cadets turned to look when a second class SOLDIER walked into the room. They couldn't see his face because his helmet was covering it but they noticed a long tail behind him. He was obviously a rat.

"Cadets!" They all snapped to attention. "In line now!" They all rushed to form a straight line and Cloud found himself away from Reno and in between two large rats. "I'm Commander Luxiere. I'm a second class SOLDIER, and from now on, the lot of you are under my jurisdiction. I expect you all to pull your weight and if I think you're not doing as well as you should be, expect to be kicked out faster than you can breathe. I do not tolerate tardiness and if I catch any of you doing anything you shouldn't be doing, expect to be punished. Now first things first, I want to see what you all really look like."

This was the part Cloud was really dreading. The rats on either side of him already had their ears and tails out. Slowly, he allowed his wings to emerge as Luxiere made his way down the lines. Very soon, Cloud could practically feel the commander's eyes glaring at him through his helmet. "You, cadet, what is your name?"

"Cloud Strife, sir!" He tried to keep his voice steady as he spoke.

"What are you? Some kind of flier I can see that."

"Crane, sir."

"A crane?" Hands came up to around his shoulders and he was turned around so that Luxiere could get a better look at his wings.

"What's wrong with your wings? I've met a lot of cranes in my line of work and none of their wings looked like this." Cloud winced.

"They've always been like that sir." Luxiere let him go and Cloud turned back around so that he could look at the commander again.

"And your parents?"

"My mothers wings are normal sir." He was stared at for a few more moments before the rat beside Cloud was grabbed and Luxiere brought out a knife, cutting the back of his hand, causing the cadet to cry out in both surprise and pain.

"Heal him."

"Sorry?" Cloud looked surprised as blood spilt from the wound before him.

"You heard what I said cadet, heal him. You're a crane, it's one of your abilities, is it not?"

"I'm sorry sir… I can't heal." There were snickers coming from the rest of the cadets as Luxiere pushed away the one that he had cut. Cloud could already hear the rumours that were bound to pop up as to why he wasn't normal.

"Go to the infirmary and get them to look at that." The cadet quickly scurried off as Luxiere turned his attention back to Cloud. "And you. What makes you think you'll be of any use to us? Not only are your wings the wrong colour, but you can't even heal. I'm guessing you can't even fly with the size of your wings."

"I'm a fast learner sir and I am good with materia."

"Are you now? Well we'll see about that. The lot of you, you're all dismissed. Make sure you're here tomorrow at this exact same time. Understood?" There was a chorus of 'yes sir!' "Now get lost all of you." Cloud quickly bowed his head and headed out of the room with the rest of the cadets.

"Heh, puny little crane. I know exactly what's wrong with you." Cloud practically froze. He never thought he would hear that voice, not here. "You're a little Halfling that's why. You half human, you don't even belong here. Then again, you don't belong in the human world either, maybe you should do both worlds a favour and just die already." Cloud turned to look at the person. He really didn't want to believe it but the proof was right in front of him.

"Johnny…" Johnny was one of the cats from Clouds hometown. He had been friends with the mayors daughter and the head of the group that had always picked on Cloud. He was one of the reasons why Cloud had left, but he had never thought that he'd see him here. The other boy smirked.

"I heard from Tifa that the little half human was coming to Shinra, I thought that I'd come along too just to make sure you knew your place, can't have you getting a big head now can we?" Slowly, Cloud backed up away from the other boy until he heard his name being called. He turned to see Reno running towards him.

"Cloud!" Johnny just grinned and turned to walk away.

"I'll see you around Strife. Might want to watch your back though. We don't want any accidents happening now do we?" He disappeared into the sea of cadets just as Reno managed to catch up with him.

"Yo Cloud you should grow more. Maybe then you'll be easier to find. What's wrong? You look as pale as a sheet yo. You're not letting that commander get to you are you?" Cloud immediately shook his head. Almost willing the colour back to his face.

"It's nothing Reno… Wait… Aren't you… Disgusted with me? I mean I'm…" Reno grinned and slapped Cloud hard against his back causing Cloud to stumble a little.

"Full, half or deformed, don't matter to me yo. You're still Cloud right? So no matter what you're stuck with me you hear little chickabo?" Cloud stared at him for a moment before he grinned.

"Yeah, I hear you."